{"id":901,"date":"2013-03-27T09:49:49","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T09:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/?p=901"},"modified":"2021-07-26T12:17:05","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T12:17:05","slug":"so-how-does-your-mind-affect-your-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/so-how-does-your-mind-affect-your-body\/","title":{"rendered":"So how DOES your mind affect your body?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2626\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2626\" class=\"wp-image-2626 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA.jpg 347w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2626\" class=\"wp-image-2626 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/DNA.jpg 347w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><p id=\"caption-attachment-2626\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">image: iStock photo<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Most people learn from an early age that the mind is just something that we use to think with and that it interprets life events. Any ideas that the mind could somehow affect the body have traditionally, in the West at least, been written off as fantasy or some mysterious and unexplained mind-over-matter effect.<\/p>\n<p>Actually, it\u2019s not mysterious at all and evidence shows that there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the mind impacts the body. Try to think of a sexual fantasy without having a physical impact or causing hormonal fluctuations in your body!<\/p>\n<p>Your mind is affecting your body right now. It affects it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Most of the time we just don\u2019t notice.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re all chemists, you see. I\u2019m a trained chemist. I have a PhD in organic chemistry, which involves building up molecules by sticking atoms together. For this, I earned a place developing drugs for heart disease and cancer in a large pharmaceutical company.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, though, my interest was really on the people in medical trials who improved on placebos, and so accelerated my interest in the mind-body connection.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, we\u2019re all chemists. If you had to think of someone who causes you stress then you\u2019d produce stress chemistry in your brain. You\u2019d also elevate levels of cortisol and adrenalin in your bloodstream, and cause increased blood to flow to your major muscles. If you think in this way consistently, then there\u2019s a fair chance that you could produce higher levels of free radicals and chemicals of inflammation in your bloodstream too.<\/p>\n<p>Or you could think of someone you love or feel affection towards. This time, you\u2019ll produce love chemistry in your brain, which will involve dopamine, serotonin, the brain\u2019s natural versions of morphine and heroin, known as <i>endogenous opioids<\/i>, and the love hormone, oxytocin.<\/p>\n<p>Oxytocin will also be produced around the body and will quickly dilate your arteries and lower your blood pressure. It\u2019s called a \u2018cardioprotective\u2019 hormone &#8211; it protects the heart. It might even initiate labor if you\u2019re heavily pregnant. With consistent thinking in this way, the elevated oxytocin levels will neutralise free radicals and inflammation in your blood vessels. Not bad at all, I think, for something you\u2019re doing with your mind! Yes, we\u2019re quite the chemists.<\/p>\n<p>Again, bear in mind that this is stuff you\u2019re doing with your mind!! Your mind is not some impotent instrument that just interprets the world, where your thoughts, intentions, hopes, and your dreams simply float off into the ether.\u00a0You can think of your mind as a force, because it does actually bring about effects all throughout your body.<\/p>\n<p>You could take your chemistry prowess a little farther and use your mind to change the physical structure of your brain. You could impress your friends at dinner by giving them a demonstration. It might be a little boring for them, though, as they\u2019d have to watch you with your eyes closed, paying attention to your breathing for about an hour or two (it\u2019s called meditation, to the uninitiated). But, hey, if you had a portable scanner with you then you could show them the scans by the time they finished their second course. They\u2019d see changes in the bit above your eyes. And you could really impress them by specifically making changes to the left side of this bit. All you\u2019d have done was to infuse your meditation with thoughts and feelings of love and compassion.<\/p>\n<p>You could even do a little magic trick and ask them to choose any body part and you could then stimulate that part with your mind without even moving it.<\/p>\n<p>Say they chose your big toe, for instance. All you\u2019d do is focus your attention on your big toe and they could measure electrical and chemical changes there. If this sounds far-fetched, simply thinking about a body area and immediately stimulating the corresponding brain area governing it is actually central to new emerging prosthetics technologies. Thinking of moving a paralysed limb, for instance, stimulates the area of the brain connected to it, which is linked to a computer device that can then move a prosthetic device, or even a make a character take a step forward in a computer game.<\/p>\n<p>Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are potentially the next big step in computer gaming, actually. It\u2019s all made possible because the brain doesn\u2019t really distinguish between whether you\u2019re doing something or whether you\u2019re just imagining it.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, things have come quite far in the whole mind-body field in the past decade. It\u2019s funny but had I suggested, a little over a decade ago, that any of the above could be possible, I\u2019d probably have been laughed out of any lab. It\u2019s funny how things change, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>I was actually asked, a little over a year ago, to give a lecture on the mind-body connection to medical students, so it\u2019s great to see that some areas of mind-body science are now beginning to be taken seriously. And may it just keep getting better and better! Ripples!!<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re interested, here\u2019s a <a href=\"http:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/?page_id=593\">link to a download<\/a> of a recent lecture I gave entitled, \u2018How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>For mind-body explanations and references to scientific journal articles, see David R Hamilton PhD, \u2018How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body\u2019 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Your-Mind-Heal-Body\/dp\/1401921485\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314303&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=how+your+mind+can+heal+your+body\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paperback<\/a>) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/How-Your-Mind-Heal-Body\/dp\/1848500238\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314422&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UK paperback<\/a>) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Your-Mind-Heal-Body-ebook\/dp\/B00332FO8U\/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314303&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kindle<\/a>) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Your-Mind-Heal-Body-ebook\/dp\/B00332FO8U\/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314422&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UK Kindle<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>For information on the connection between love, kindness, compassion, and oxytocin and how this impacts the heart, see David R Hamilton PhD, \u2018Why Kindness is Good for You\u2019 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Why-Kindness-Good-For-You\/dp\/1848501781\/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314368&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paperback<\/a>) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Why-Kindness-Good-For-You\/dp\/1848501781\/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314476&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UK paperback<\/a>) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Why-Kindness-Good-You-ebook\/dp\/B0042JSLLA\/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314368&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=why+kindness+is+good+for+you\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kindle<\/a>) (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Why-Kindness-Good-You-ebook\/dp\/B0042JSLLA\/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1364314476&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UK Kindle<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most people learn from an early age that the mind is just something that we use to think with and that it interprets life events. Any ideas that the mind could somehow affect the body have traditionally, in the West at least, been written off as fantasy or some mysterious and unexplained mind-over-matter effect. Actually,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,87,21],"tags":[198,57,12,26,29,85,33,82,36,94,15,20,40,31],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>So how DOES your mind affect your body? - David R Hamilton PHD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most people learn from an early age that the mind is just something that we use to think with and that it interprets life events. 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